The end of daily newspapers in print draws a little closer

The Newhouse family's Advance Publications unit is cutting print runs at The Times Picayune in New Orleans and three other papers in Alabama. A prominent newspaper analyst thinks the strategy will spread to other Advance papers, including The Plain Dealer.

“Newspaper analyst Ken Doctor, who writes the Newsonomics blog, said the company is trying to hold on to declining print ad revenue for a few more years, and expects Advance to eventually cut print runs at its other newspapers in New Jersey, Oregon, Ohio and elsewhere,” the Associated Press reports. The company owns The Oregonian in Portland, Ore., The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.

"It's a big bet to retain profitability and hope that in the shock therapy, there are profits on the other end," Mr. Doctor says.

In a Wall Street Journalstory Steven Newhouse, chairman of Advance.net, the corporate digital arm of Advance, is quoted as saying, “We are looking, as everyone is looking, at what is the best solution for each market, and the markets are different.”

The Wall Street Journal reports Forest City Ratner has leased about 33,000 square feet in the Ridge Hill open-air shopping center in Yonkers, N.Y., to Merlin Entertainments of the U.K., which operates half a dozen other Legoland parks in the United States.

The company has paid billions of dollars over the last two years for drilling rights to 1.3 million acres of it, or about 5% of Ohio's land area, The Wall Street Journal reports.

“Now, Chesapeake is raising its bet—ramping up drilling on a promising but unproven oil field, at a time when the embattled natural-gas giant is under financial stress and facing heightened scrutiny from investors,” The Journal says.

It's a risky move.

“Battered by the lowest natural-gas prices in a decade, Chesapeake is selling off some of its most lucrative assets and taking out increasingly expensive loans in a bid to transform itself into an oil power,” according to the newspaper. “The cash-strapped company, whose stock market valuation is under $10 billion, has more than $13 billion in debt on its balance sheet and total obligations of close to $24 billion, ratings agencies say.”

A $3.3 billion plan to build North America's first major chromite mine deep in the Canadian wilderness, in which Cleveland-based Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. plays a prominent role, “promises to usher in an era of prosperity for the region's aboriginals and generate millions of tax dollars over its lifetime,” Reuters reports.

Tucked deep into northern Ontario, the so-called “Ring of Fire” contains rich mineral deposits “that could transform the region much as the oil sands have transformed Alberta,” Reuters says. The region contains North America's only known large-scale chromite deposit. If Cliffs develops the “Black Thor” project (love these names), it “will likely revolutionize the stainless steel industry on the continent, which now relies on imports from South Africa and Kazakhstan,” according to the news service.

“With its strong formal moves, the museum intends to aid the city's urban-revitalization efforts by shaping an iconic cultural destination alongside its neighboring concentration of museums, such as the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History,” Arch Daily says.

The accompanying photos are fantastic. This is going to be a major addition to Cleveland's cultural offerings.

Fitch Ratings lowered its outlook on diversified energy company FirstEnergy Corp. of Akron to negative from stable, reflecting the prolonged downturn in power prices.

“Fitch noted low power prices are a result of a surfeit of natural gas supply, strong reserve margins and a tepid economic recovery,” according to MarketWatch.com. “These lower prices also adversely affect power supply margin. Compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency's rules will also lead to significant additional capital investment and operating costs for the company this year and beyond, which will further pressure margins and cash flows.”